Every Day I Love You Less and Less
by RobinRocks
Summary: She trusts him because she loves him, but even she will draw the line and when she discovers that he has crossed that line, her love for him begins to decline. Oneshot, takes place during Season 1’s Masks. Starfire’s POV. Onesided StarxRobin.


I'm on a roll at the moment; just one stupid one-shot after another, making four so far in less than 24 hours…

_Anyway_… I always thought that one of the main themes of _Teen Titans_ Season One was the slow decline of trust in Robin by the other Titans. And let's face it – he lies to them, steals from high security tech-labs, beats them all up, ignores/dismisses/is downright rude to them, betrays them (not off his own back, but same dif), beats them up some more, shoots them with a laser beam…

It's a wonder they didn't kick him out, but then, if they had, there would have been Seasons 2, 3, 4, or even 5… He is, after all, the most important character when it comes to the _Teen Titans_ merchandising campaign. You can always guarantee to make a killing of something _Batman_-related… and you don't get anything more _Batman_-related than his sidekick (except Batman himself, of course).

But I digress. The point is that one of the main themes in Season One, I thought, was trust… or a lack of it. This applies to Starfire in particular, who always thinks the best of everyone until they wrong her. And what betrayal of trust and love would have cut her more deeply than Robin's, particularly when it is she who discovers that it is _he_ who is Red X?

_Soooo_… this is an insight into our favorite alien princess and her feelings at that time. Again, please note that this takes place during _Masks_. Hope you like; I love writing in Starfire's P.O.V…

Oh, and the title of the fic _is_ taken from the Kaiser Chiefs song of the same name, but it's not a song-fic…

Every Day I Love You Less and Less

It pains me deeply to distrust him, and yet…

…I cannot help but feel that he is _lying_ to us.

These past few weeks he has become withdrawn. Moody. Secretive.

To X'hal and to myself I must admit that I am worried for him. His behavior cannot be healthy. He simply locks himself away for hours on end, sometimes even all day. He is stressing himself and yet he will not rest.

I have tried the talking to him. So have the others. Beast Boy has shrieked at him that the over-working is unhealthy. Cyborg has tried the sitting-down-over-coffee-to-talk; I distinctly remember Robin eventually shouting at him and throwing his cup at the wall in a fit of rage. Raven has tried to explain the effects of stress on the body, and even offered to teach him how to meditate to ease his troubled mind.

I have merely attempted to _talk_. The small-talk, as Cyborg has called it. I ask him how he is, if he would like to join us for pizza, if he would like to potato the couch with us.

He always says no. The last time he ended our conversation by closing the door in my face.

It is this enigmatic character known as Slade. We know little to nothing of this villain – Robin knows only a limited amount himself, and what he _does_ know he will not share with us.

Perhaps he feels he is protecting us by not saying a word. But I know he is only irritating Cyborg, and as for me…

It only makes me worried. This Slade, his enigma torments Robin. We know him to be bad; perhaps the worst thing that has happened to the city in all of the time we have been protecting it.

But we do not truly know who he is, or what his motives are, or what it is that he truly even _wants_…

This angers Robin. He is stressed because he knows that Slade is up to something and he cannot stop it because he does not know what _it_ is.

Either way, I believe this to be a race against time.

For both _Robin_ to stop _Slade_…

…and for _us_ to save _Robin_.

Before it is too late.

Before he is…

…_lost_.

I admit to liking him very much indeed – in all meanings of the word – and yet, his behavior seeks only to shut me out. I cannot help but feel my love declining the longer and more determinedly he pushes me away.

It is true that as the days and weeks wear on…

…I begin to love him less and less.

**TT**

_("…Y'all think maybe Robin's losing his grip?"_

"_No! Robin's grip is not lost! He works harder than any of you! He works to catch Slade before something terrible happens! He works to save us all!")_

Cyborg's traitorous words echo in my head now as I slide back the door to Robin's dark bedroom. How can he say such things?

Perhaps my defense of Robin was a little hasty, and even a little passionate, however; for I admit that they all had a peak.

No… a _point_. They all had a _point_.

Robin has not been much help to us recently. His frequent disappearances have mostly certainly been at least _part_ of the accounting reason for our continuous defeats at the hands of the Red X. His job is to lead the team; how may he lead when he is not with us?

But still, I do not believe his grip to be lost.

Perhaps he has merely _misplaced_ it?

He is not in his room. I am unsurprised, but worried all the same. I look around at his walls, and question how he may sleep with all of these drab newspaper cuttings plastered to his walls. I myself find decorating the walls of my own room to be a most delightful practice. I like to draw, and I find the cutting out of pictures from magazines to stick up a most amusing past-time. I also have a _Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi_ poster which I find most joyful to gaze upon each morning.

Robin has none of these things. Just newspaper cuttings on cases. Robin's entire _room_ in a case-file all its own.

I move to the desk and look over it. My own desk is pink wood and a great many thing of a mostly pink, fluffy and sparkly nature reside upon it.

Robin's desk is plain and metal, and none of the things which live there are pink, fluffy or sparkly. Instead it is littered with papers and notes and broken weapons and gadgets and what I suppose is "Slade memorabilia".

I pick up a broken birdarang and ask aloud his location – even though I suppose I am addressing _myself_ more than him, taking his absence into account.

"Robin, where have you gone…?"

The birdarang sparks and I fling it away from myself with a gasp; it glances off a small round object at the corner of the desk and knocks it off, where it falls to the floor and bounces a few times, then rolls to a stop. A beam of light rises from it and expands; and within it I find myself looking at Robin, ensnared within a net.

I gasp. Has he been trapped like this? Is this where he has been?

"I'm fine! Get X! Go!" He orders.

I am puzzled, and look behind me. The Red X is not in the vicinity. And then I notice that Robin is not even looking at me.

"Huh? Robin?"

I step toward him as he repeats the order. His image suddenly flickers, then fine-tunes again, and I begin to realize…

I reach through him easily; because he is not _real_. He is a hologram. _This_ is the Robin who accompanied us on our chasing of the Red X earlier this evening. And so…

"If you were not really there, then where were…"

I give another sharp gasp as the truth dawns on me.

Robin _is_ Red X.

But why? He hurt us, exploited our weaknesses, beat us… and for _what_?

Why cannot he not _trust_ us as we trust _him_?

It angers me; and it hurts me – makes me _ache_ inside.

And also inside me I feel a little more of my love for him slip away.

It is true that with every day which passes, and with every new thing I learn about him…

…I love him less and less.

END

* * *

Ah, poor Star…

Review, peasants, or face the punishment of having Silkie released in your sock drawer! Then, when you are rushing to get to school on Monday morning, you will have no socks! Mwa-ha-ha!

- RobinRocks xXx


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